Midyear New Music (Part Four) – Meursault

I’ve been meaning to write about Meursault for ages. Partly because they are, you know, really dead good and that; partly because they’ve released an album which I’ve been very much enjoyed this past few months (All Creatures Will Make Merry), and partly because their records are released by a reasonably well-known Scottish music blog, Song, by Toad. Old Toady’s one of my favourite reads out there, because, well, he’s a sweary fucker and has a good taste in music. What more can you ask for, eh?

Anyway, Meursault have finally been getting the press they and their dramatic “Folktronica getting duffed up in an alley by assorted members of The Twilight Sad” music deserves. I’ve been wanting to write all sorts of things about them; about how music blogs can not only help promote bands like Meursault, but it can even release their records; how this could be a fantastic new model for new bands, avoiding the contractual handcuffs and horrendous business practices of the mainstream music industry; the way that bloggers chatting to each other on their special secret forums can bypass the white noise of incessant publicist emails1; and how there’s some great music coming from Scotland right now.

And then I thought, “Oh for fuck’s sake, it’s been three fucking months with you thinking about what to write, trying to do it justice and all, just post the fucking thing and get on with writing a fucking Pitchfork post”. So here it is. Buy it direct from Song, By Toad Records here. If this record isn’t worth a tenner, I don’t know what is.

1 Not that I mind incessant publicist emails; I quite enjoy them, and I’ve had some brilliant music sent to me. It’s just hard to find the time to go through them all.